Archer Targeted Communication - ArcherTC.com» Diversity

Marketing to Muslims poses a challenge for retailers

ArcherTC — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 11:46:44 +0000

Leafing through a Best Buy flier over the holiday season, Celena Khatib spotted a small greeting near the bottom of the page: “Happy Eid al-Adha.”

The good wishes for the important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims seemed a milestone in U.S. marketing. “I finally felt that they are recognizing Muslims like we are a part of this community,” said Khatib, 31, a suburban Detroit mother of two. “We live here, we spend our money here.”

But on Best Buy’s website, people around the country posted contrasting views. “You insult all of the heros and innocent who died 911 by celebrating a holiday of the religion that said to destroy them!” wrote one. Many others said they would no longer shop at Best Buy.

The controversy underscores the continuing obstacles that retailers and other companies face in marketing to a U.S. Muslim population estimated at more than 2.3 million by the Pew Research Center.

Flickr photo credit: al-Taqi [feeling surrealistic]

Beyond Gender and Negotiation to Gendered Negotiations

ArcherTC — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:10:48 +0000

Women often negotiate over issues that men take as givens—opportunities for promotion and training, mentoring, client assignments, partnership arrangements, resources, and office space, among others. When and if these negotiations occur, they take place in the context of a particular negotiated order—cultural patterns and work practices that are the result of past interaction and negotiation. What is of interest here is how these patterns and practices might shape our understanding of gender and negotiation in the workplace and the implications of this framing for research and practice. We explore second generation gender issues, or how gender and gendered relationships shape negotiated orders such that they can have differential consequences for women’s and men’s negotiations. …more at Beyond Gender and Negotiation to Gendered Negotiations – HBS Working Knowledge, published 19 March 2009.

Flickr photo credit: The Taste of Rain

Mixed Signals: The State of Black Entrepreneurship

ArcherTC — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:40:05 +0000

The gap in businesses ownership rates between whites and blacks is widely regarded as evidence of inequality. How bad is it really, and what can be done?

When he started his company, Donald Coleman had nothing but his personal savings and a few faithful friends to fund it. Twenty years later, GlobalHue, Coleman’s marketing communications agency that focuses on minority consumers, closed 2008 with $825 million in billings. Numbers like that earn Coleman membership in an all-too-exclusive club: He is a successful black entrepreneur. And he has an idea why there aren’t more people like him.

“I think it’s quite evident that the lack of access to capital is the reason why there aren’t more minority entrepreneurs,” he says.

Coleman’s experience resonates with studies like Race and Entrepreneurial Success, published last year by University of California, Santa Cruz economics professor Rob Fairlie and research associate Alicia Robb. They analyzed confidential data from the U.S. Census Bureau to paint a comprehensive picture of minority business ownership, and the results, at least for black entrepreneurship, are bleak. Overall, the number of black business owners is far lower than the national average, and their businesses also “tend to have lower sales, fewer employees and smaller payrolls, lower profits, and higher closure rates.” ….more at Mixed Signals: The Progress of Black Entrepreneurship – Business Ownership – Entrepreneur.com, published 9 March 2009.

Photo credit: Royalty-Free/Corbis

Spanish-language ads climb, African-American advertising drops

ArcherTC — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:45:21 +0000

Advertising in Spanish-Language media is growing, according to a new analysis of multi-cultural ad spending conducted by The Nielsen Company.

Total spending in Spanish-Language media climbed 2.7% to $4.3 billion through the first three quarters of 2008, compared to the same period in 2007. Procter & Gamble spent the most on Spanish-Language advertising through September 2008 with $133 million in expenditures. Of the top-10 advertisers in this category, DirecTV stood out with the most growth, spending almost five times as much as it spent through the first three quarters of 2007. …more at Spanish-Language Ads Climb, African-American Advertising Drops | Nielsen Wire, published 29 Jan 2009.

Flickr photo credit: TJZookPhotography

Career path: how I became an ethnocentric digital marketer

ArcherTC — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 08:15:46 +0000

I started to tear up at lunch today while talking to Lizie, a young woman who works with me. She’s from Mexico, and about a year ago she didn’t know a CPM from a CPA. But I hired her because she was bright, driven and eager to learn. She’s so driven that this past holiday season, while home in Guadalajara, she took time out of her personal schedule to visit some local advertising agencies. She came back with stories of how she’d ended up teaching an impromptu class on online advertising to a hungry audience. The pride I felt when she told me this took me back to my motivations for starting Consorte in the first place. …read more at Career Path: How I Became an Ethnocentric Digital Marketer | Hispanic Marketing | Fast Company.

Women in nonprofit technology who rock: adding to Fast Company’s most influential women in technology list

ArcherTC — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:06:59 +0000

In December, Fast Company published an article called “The Most Influential Women in Web 2.0″ featuring about a dozen amazing women who work in the Web 2.0 world. The list included BlogHer founders Elisa Camahort Page, Jory Des Jardins, and Lisa Stone. Kaliya Hamlin, who is the founder of She’s Geeky, a women and technology conference taking place in Mountain View, CA on January 30-31st was also on the list.

The post sparked heated debate. Fast Company responded with “The Most Influential Women in Technology.”

I’m humbled to be listed in the “Activists” category!

But as with any “best of” or “most this or that” list, it’s bound to be incomplete. So, when Lynne Johnson from Fast Company asked me to blog a list, I thought I’d create a nonprofit technology category and acknowledge the work of these awesome women …more from Beth’s Blog. Photo credit: Fast Company